1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a polarizing plate. The polarizing plate may be used alone or in the form of a laminated optical film to form an image display such as a flat panel display such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) or an electroluminescence display (ELD), a plasma display (PD), or a field emission display (FED).
2. Description of Related Art
Image display, typically LCDs, include devices that display characters and images with the aid of the electro-optical properties of liquid crystal molecules. According to the image display system, such LCDs use a liquid crystal panel including a liquid crystal cell and polarizing plates placed on both sides of the liquid crystal cell. Such polarizing plates are conventionally rectangular. Further, rectangular polarizing plates with truncated corners are also known (see JP-A 08-160223), but such polarizing plates are also basically rectangular.
When the polarizing plates are placed on a liquid crystal cell, a pressure-sensitive adhesive is generally used to laminate them together. In the laminating process, for example, if the laminated polarizing plate is misaligned or foreign matter is caught on the laminating surface, the polarizing plate will be peeled from the liquid crystal cell so that the liquid crystal cell can be recycled. The process of peeling the polarizing plate is called “reworking.” However, if the polarizing plate tears or breaks and partially remains on the liquid crystal cell in the process of reworking the polarizing plate, recycling of the liquid crystal cell will be disturbed. Further, in recent years, LCDs have been required to be thin mainly for mobile applications. Under the circumstances, polarizing plates have been reduced in thickness so that the reworking can be vulnerable to the trouble.